The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Group Mind, by William McDougall.

[13] Op. cit. p. 74. I consider Mr Barker’s brief statement of the nature of the group mind entirely acceptable, and it has given me great pleasure to find myself in such close harmony with it. It will perhaps give further weight to the fact of our agreement, if I add that the whole of this book, including the rest of this introductory chapter, was written before I took up Mr Barker’s brilliant little volume.

[14] Op. cit. p. 175.

[15] This principle of primitive sympathy or simple direct induction or contagion of emotion was formulated in Chapter IV of my Social Psychology.

[16] It was my good fortune to witness the almost instantaneous spread of anger through a crowd of five thousand warlike savages in the heart of Borneo. Representatives of all the tribes of a large district of Sarawak had been brought together by the resident magistrate for the purpose of strengthening friendly relations and cementing peace between the various tribes. All went smoothly, and the chiefs surrounded by their followers were gathered together in a large hall, rudely constructed of timber, to make public protestations of friendship. An air of peace and good-will pervaded the assembly, until a small piece of wood fell from the roof upon the head of one of the leading chiefs, making a slight wound from which the blood trickled. Only the immediate neighbours of this chief observed the accident or could perceive its effect; nevertheless in the space of a few seconds a wave of angry emotion swept over the whole assembly, and a general and bloody fight would have at once commenced, but that the Resident had insisted upon all weapons being left in the boats on the river 200 yards away. The great majority of the crowd rushed headlong to fetch their weapons from their boats, while the few who remained on the ground danced in fury or rushed to and fro gesticulating wildly. Happily the boats were widely scattered along the banks of the river, so that it was possible for the Resident, by means of persuasion, threats, and a show of armed force, to prevent the hostile parties coming together again with their weapons in hand.

[17] The Souls of Black Folk, by W. E. B. Du Bois, London, 1905.

[18] The Crowd, p. 11.

[19] In a recent work (What is Instinct? by Bingham Newland) the author, who shows an intimate knowledge of the life of wild animals, seems to postulate some such direct telepathic rapport between animals of the same species.

[20] See The Dissociation of a Personality, by Dr Morton Prince; Double Personality, by A. Binet; The Psychology of Suggestion, by Boris Sidis; L’automatism psychologique, by Pierre Janet; and the descriptions and discussions of William James in his Principles of Psychology.

[21] Philosophy of the Unconscious.

[22] Die Psychophysik.

[23] Psychologie des idées forces.

[24] Les Sociétés animales, Paris, 1877.

[25] Bau und Leben des Socialen Körpers.

[26] Medicinische Psychologie.

[27] I have argued that the great increase of knowledge of the functions and structure of the nervous system attained by recent research does but provide for the argument a surer basis of empirical data; and I have contended that some at least of the cases of disintegration of personality are more easily reconcilable with this view, than with the contrary doctrine which regards the individual consciousness as the collective consciousness of the brain-cells. See my Body and Mind, a book I found myself compelled to write in order to arrive at a reasoned judgment on this difficult problem, which obtrudes itself at the outset of the study of group life.

[28] Social Psychology, Chapter IX.

[29] See especially A. Stoll’s Suggestion und Hypnotismus in der Völkerpsychologie, where the events of the French revolution have been treated in some detail from this point of view.

[30] Hon. Maurice Baring in an article in the Morning Post of April 21, 1906.

[31] Social Psychology, Chapter IX.

[32] Op. cit. Chapter VII.

[33] One great difference between the professional army, such as that of England, and the citizen armies of Europe, consists in the fact that the special sentiment for the army is stronger in the former; the more general patriotic sentiment, in the rank and file of the latter; though in the regular officers of the continental army the sentiment for the army itself is no doubt usually the stronger.

[34] Cp. The Pagan Tribes of Borneo, by Ch. Hose and W. McDougall, London, 1912.

[35] From Religion to Philosophy, p. 77.

[36] Op. cit. p. 82.

[37] Cf. The Pagan Tribes of Borneo, by Ch. Hose and W. McDougall, London, 1912.

[38] Mr Cornford’s book might in fact be entitled with greater propriety From Philosophy to Religion.

[40] Les Fonctions mentales dans les Sociétés inférieures, Alcan, Paris, 1910.

[41] At this point I would refer the reader to the discussion of the self-regarding sentiment (Chapter VII) in my Social Psychology.

[42] For a brief history of the nation-state the reader may be referred to Prof. Ramsay Muir’s Nationalism and Internationalism, London, 1917. He rightly describes ‘nationalism’ as one of the most powerful factors in modern history. It is, I think, obviously true that we may go further and say that it is the most powerful factor in modern history.

[43] Op. cit. p. 38.

[44] Op. cit. p. 54.

[45] Op. cit. p. 51.

[46] Chapter II. On the question of the definition of the terms ‘mind’ and ‘character’ I would refer the reader to my Psychology, The Study of Behaviour, Home University Library.

[47] Prof. Hans Driesch’s conception of ‘super-individual entelechy’ seems to be of this order, arrived at by the same line of reasoning. See Science and Philosophy of the Organism, Gifford Lectures, 1907.

[48] Psychological Laws of the Evolution of Peoples.

[49] As examples of the best work as yet accomplished in this immense and fascinating field, I would refer the reader to the books of M. Alfred Fouillée one of the most clear-sighted, judicious, and readable of modern philosophers, especially his Psychologie des peuples européens, his Psychologie du peuple français, and his Science Sociale Contemporaine.

[50] Psychologie du peuple français, p. 4. Paris 1903.

[51] Social Psychology, p. 330.

[52] Les inégalités des races humaines.

[53] This fantastic doctrine has found its fullest expression in Chamberlain’s work The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century.

[54] Other prominent exponents of this view are Mr J. M. Robertson in his book The Germans and in his Introduction to English Politics, and M. J. Finot in his Race Prejudice.

[55] I here use this word in the large, loose and convenient sense in which it is used by M. Tarde in his Lois de l’imitation. I have examined the nature of imitative processes more closely in my Social Psychology.

[56] Meredith Townsend regards this as one of the leading qualities of the peoples of India. See Europe and Asia, London, 1901.

[57] Cp. Ripley’s Races of Europe and Prof. H. J. Fleure’s Human Geography in Western Europe, London, 1919.

[58] Cf. The Black Republic, by Sir Spencer St John and Where Black rules White, by H. Hesketh Prichard.

[59] M. le Bon and more than one Indian civil servant in conversation.

[60] By G. Lowes Dickinson, Hibbert Journal, Jan. 1911.

[61] In the Fortnightly Review, Jan. 1910, and in his Social Environment and Moral Progress, London, 1913.

[62] Physics and Politics.

[63] Cp. Ripley, op. cit. and Fleure, op. cit.

[64] This was written in 1910, and now in 1919 the dissolution which was so obviously impending is an accomplished fact.

[65] The great myth of the racial unity and superiority of the German people, which we have noticed above, has been cultivated and propagated, with elaborate disregard for fact by the German State and its henchmen in the universities and elsewhere, in a deliberate effort to remedy by art the lack of natural boundaries and of true national homogeneity.

[66] In his Works of Man Mr March Philips shews clearly the influence of the Egyptian landscape upon the arts of sculpture and architecture.

[67] Cf. Sir S. Dill’s The Roman Empire from Nero to Augustus, London, 1905.

[68] Since these lines were written a new mode of rapid locomotion, namely the aerial, which has resulted from the invention and rapid development of the internal combustion engine, threatens to eclipse all others in its effects upon the organisation of the world.

[69] This state of affairs has no doubt been considerably altered during the great war; the political education of Germany, a painful but salutary process, is progressing rapidly.

[70] Cf. N. Angell, The Great Illusion.

[71] Incipient nations have appeared where the Bantu stock has produced occasionally great warrior chiefs such as Chaka and Cetewayo.

[72] Psychological Laws of the Evolution of Peoples.

[73] I do not propose to examine in this book the much discussed question—Are the leaders of a nation to be regarded as produced by the nation according to the general laws of biology and psychology, or as given to them by some supernatural process? This question belongs to a branch of Social Psychology which is not included in the volume.

[74] Psychologie du peuple français, p. 13.

[75] Ramsay Muir, op. cit. and J. Holland Rose, The Development of the European Nations. London, 1905.

[76] J. Holland Rose, op. cit.

[77] I suggest that international emulation in this sphere may prove to be an effective, probably the only effective, substitute for war.

[78] Bau und Leben des socialen Körpers.

[80] Cf. A. Smith’s Village Life in China. The author insists on the lack of public spirit, of the idea of action pro bono publico.

[82] In his Theory of the State.

[83] By Schaffle, op. cit., and all the school of German ‘idealism’.

[84] The substance of this chapter was contained in a paper entitled ‘The Will of the People,’ read before the Sociological Society and published in the Sociological Review, 1912.

[85] Philosophical Theory of the State and Article in International Journal of Ethics, 1907.

[86] Cf. H. Rose, The Development of the European Nations and Ramsay Muir, Nationalism and Internationalism.

[87] The Russo-Japanese War, Vol. II, p. 25.

[88] La Science Sociale contemporaine, p. 115.

[89] Social Psychology, Chapters V-IX. Dr Bosanquet’s failure (as it seems to me) to achieve a satisfactory account of the social will is the inevitable consequence of the inadequacy of his conception of individual volition. This is set out in his Psychology of the Moral Self, where he shews himself to be an uncompromising adherent of the intellectualist tradition. He totally ignores the existence and organisation of the conative side of the mind. His notion of volition is based upon the now discredited theory of ideo-motor action.

[90] This was written before the war with Germany.

[91] Emulation in the administration of backward peoples offers perhaps the greatest possibilities as ‘a moral equivalent for war.’

[92] Cp. Principal L. P. Jacks on the Japanese in his Alchemy of Thought.

[93] W. L. George, English Review, May, 1915, “The Price of Nationality.” “Anger, indeed, is the soul of what is called the national will. To call it a will is perhaps too much, it is an instinct and mainly an instinct to hate.... Love of country is mainly hatred of other countries.”

[94] Cf. Gilbert Murray, Collection of Addresses on The War given at Bedford College, 1915.

[95] Incidentally he holds up my Social Psychology as a dreadful example of such an attempt and a woeful evidence of the parlous state of present-day culture in England. Such dislike of any attempt to understand that which we hold sacred is intelligible enough in the vulgar, for whom all analysis is destructive of the values they unreasoningly cherish. But it may be hoped that men of letters who set out to defend patriotism will learn to rise above this attitude, just as the more enlightened leaders of religion are learning to welcome psychological inquiry in their domain.

[96] In these respects the Church alone can enter into serious rivalry as an object of loyalty.

[97] As Dean Inge has remarked—“If they love not those whom they have seen, how shall they love those whom they have not seen?”

[98] Cp. Fielding Hall, The Soul of a People.

[99] This, as President Lowell clearly shows in his Public Opinion and Popular Government, is carried to an extreme in America and lies at the root of many administrative evils.

[100] President Lowell (op. cit.) has clearly shown other benefits resulting from the party system; he shows especially how the party is needed to prepare a program and select candidates, if the popular vote is to give expression to the dominant opinion of the people.

[101] Cp. his Civilisation and Progress.

[102] On the nature and development of the moral sentiments in the individual mind, see my Social Psychology, Chapter VIII.

[103] Op. cit. p. 210.

[104] In this connexion I would refer the reader to The New State by M. P. Follett (London, 1918), an interesting book in which the true nature and function of collective deliberation is forcibly expounded.

[105] Cf. W. R. Patterson, The Nemesis of Nations, London, 1906.

[106] Social Evolution, Principle of Western Civilisation, and The Science of Power.

[107] Essai d’une Psychologie politique du Peuple Anglais, Paris, 1903.

[108] Op. cit. p. 20.

[109] History of Civilisation, p. 137.

[110] In this connexion it must be remembered that in Hindu society the man of proved and acknowledged holiness is permitted and encouraged to procreate a large number of children.

[111] Europe and Asia.

[113] Guizot asserted that, even when new ideas and institutions have originated elsewhere, it has usually been only by their adoption in France that they have been spread through Europe (A History of Civilization in Europe).

[114] I cite these passages after M. Boutmy, op. cit. p. 168.

[115] The most frank, perhaps somewhat exaggerated, expression of the difference is The Superiority of the Anglo-Saxon, by Ed. Demolins.

[116] History of Civilisation in England, Vol. II, p. 114.

[117] Comment la route crée le type social, Paris, Didot et Cie.

[118] Histoire de la Formation particulariste, Paris.

[119] The reality of selective effect of migration is shown by the stature of American immigrants; those from Scotland are said to be two inches taller than the average Scotchman; and De Lapouge shows (Les Sélections Sociales, Paris, 1896, p. 367) that a superiority of stature almost as marked, may be inferred for the French and German immigrants of America from the statistics of the armies of the Civil War.

[120] A. Reibmayer (Inzucht u. Vermischung beim Menschen, Leipzig, 1897) insists upon the importance of isolation and consequent inbreeding for the formation of superior strains and subraces. He points out that the geographical barriers of Europe have favoured in this way the production of distinctive national types. Like Stewart Chamberlain, Flinders Petrie, and others, he regards the dark ages of Europe as a period of chaos directly due to the overcoming of these geographical barriers and the consequent prevalence of crossbreeding on a large scale.

[121] White Capital and coloured Labour.

[122] Aristotle says “want of men was the ruin of Sparta.” Fathers of three sons were exempted from military service, and of four sons from all State burdens.

[123] Several writers have pointed out the importance of these facts and at least one professional historian has insisted strongly upon them, namely O. Seeck in his Geschichte des Untergangs der antiken Welt, Berlin, 1910, vol. 1.

[124] On this topic cp. Dr Archdall Reid’s The Present Evolution of Man and his Principles of Heredity, in which books the effects of selection by disease and by alcohol are vividly set out.

[126] O. Ammon, Gesellschaftsordnung und ihre natürlichen Grundlagen, Jena, 1900.

[127] De Lapouge, Les Sélections Sociales; cf. also W. Alexis, Abhandlungen zur Theorie der Bevölkerungs-und Moralstatistik, Jena, 1903, and W. Schallmayer’s Vererbung und Auslese in ihrer soziologischen und politischen Bedeutung, Jena, 1910.

[128] Ammon’s Law.

[129] Pointed out by Francis Galton and Fouillée.

[130] On the other hand it tends (partly no doubt by deliberate design) to spread itself by insisting upon the duty of procreation. This effect is said to be very considerable in French Canada and only to be partially counteracted by a very high rate of infantile mortality.

[131] The Nineteenth Century for April, 1906.

[132] In National Life and Character, a pessimistic though intellectually stimulating book.

[133] Provident Societies, by Sidney Webb, and The London Population, by D. Heron.

[134] It must be recognised also that in Great Britain emigration has, during the last three centuries, tended in all probability in the same direction as the various forms of social selection—namely, to the deterioration of the home population; for in all ages it is the bold and enterprising persons who seek new homes in far countries, leaving the weakly, the timid, the dull, and the defective behind in the mother country. Even the convicts that we exported at one time to our colonies were probably persons of more than average capacity, though some of them may have been innately defective in moral disposition.